Zoom Will Now Tell Your Boss if You Are Late to a Meeting

A new Zoom feature will allow meeting hosts and co-hosts to use calendar integrations from Google and Microsoft to see if attendees joined their meeting on time.

Gizmodo reports that Zoom is adding a new feature to its platform called “Attendance Status.” The tool will allow Zoom hosts and co-hosts to use Google and Microsoft calendar integrations to see whether or not those invited to meetings actually join them on time.

Zoom Executives on Wall Street (AP Photos)

Zoom’s support page states that meeting participants who have been invited but not joined will be placed in a “Not Joined” section where their names will appear alongside others who failed to attend the meeting.

Meeting hosts and co-hosts can also see if those that didn’t attend had clicked the “Accepted,” “Declined,” “Maybe,” or “No” selections on their calendar response. If a user mistakenly loads into a Zoom meeting using an account other than the one they originally used to accept the invitation, Zoom displays that they have appeared as both “Not Joined” and “Joined” which is very likely to cause confusion for bosses everywhere.

Zoom said hosts will need to have enabled calendar integration with Google Calendar or Outlook Calendar in order to view a participant’s status.

The tool is likely to be used by employers to keep track of late employees but could also be used by teachers and professors conducting remote classes via Zoom. The attendance feature would allow them to keep track of which students aren’t present, but many may feel that the tool is yet another attempt to monitor and surveil every moment of their lives.